“Well,” said I to him, “Friday, what will you do now? Why don’t you shoot him?”—“No shoot,” says Friday, “no yet; me shoot now me no kill; me stay, give you one more laugh;” and indeed so he did, as you will see presently; for when the bear saw his enemy gone, he comes back from the bough where he stood, but did it mighty leisurely, looking behind him every step, and coming backward till he got into the body of the tree; then with the same hinder end foremost, he came down the tree; grasping it with his claws, and moving one foot at a time, very leisurely. At this juncture, and just before he could set his hind feet upon the ground, Friday stepped close to him, clapped the muzzle of his piece into his ear, and shot him as dead as a stone.
Then the rogue turned about to see if we did not laugh; and when he saw we were pleased by our looks, he falls a-laughing himself very loud; “So we kill bear in my country,” says Friday. “So you kill them?” said I; “why, you have no guns.”—“No,” says he, “no guns, but shoot great much long arrow.”
This was, indeed, a good diversion to us; but we were still in a wild place, and our guide very much hurt, and what to do we hardly knew: the howling of wolves ran much in my head; and indeed except the noise I once heard on the shore of Africa, of which I have said something already, I never heard any thing that filled me with so much horror.
These things, and the approach of night, called us off, or else, as Friday would have had us, we should certainly have taken the skin of this monstrous creature off, which was worth saving; but we had three leagues to go, and our guide hastened us; so we left him, and went forward on our journey.
The ground was still covered with snow, though not so deep and dangerous as on the mountains; and the ravenous creatures, as we heard afterwards, were come down into the forest and plain country, pressed by hunger, to seek for food, and had done a great deal of mischief in the villages, where they surprised the country-people, killed a great many of their sheep and horses, and some people too.
We had one dangerous place to pass, of which our guide told us, if there were any more wolves in the country, we should find them there; and this was a small plain, surrounded with woods on every side, and a long narrow defile or lane, which we were to pass to get through the wood, and then we should come to the village where we were to lodge.
It was within half an hour of sunset when we entered the first wood; and a little after sunset, when we came into the plain. We met with nothing in the first wood, except that in a little plain within the wood, which was not above two furlongs over, we saw five great wolves cross the road, full speed one after another, as if they had been in chase of some prey, and had it in view: they took no notice of us, and were gone and out of sight in a few moments.
Upon this our guide, who, by the way, was a wretched faint-hearted fellow, bade us keep in a ready posture; for he believed there were more wolves a-coming.
We kept our arms ready, and our eyes about us; but we saw no more wolves till we came through that wood, which was near half a league, and entered the plain: as soon as we came into the plain, we had occasion enough to look about us. The first object we met with was a dead horse, that is to say, a poor horse which the wolves had killed, and at least a dozen of them at work; we could not say eating of him, but picking of his bones rather; for they had eaten up all the flesh before.
We did not think fit to disturb them at their feast, neither did they take much notice of us: Friday would have let fly at them, but I would not suffer him by any means; for I found we were like to have more business upon our hands than we were aware of. We were not half gone over the plain, but we began to hear the wolves howl in the woods, on our left, in a frightful manner; and presently after we saw about a hundred coming on directly towards us, all in a body, and most of them in a line, as regularly as an army drawn up by experienced officers. I scarce knew in what manner to receive them; but found to draw ourselves in a close line was the only way; so we formed in a moment; but, that we might not have too much interval, I ordered, that only every other man should fire; and that the others, who had not fired, should stand ready to give them a second volley immediately, if they continued to advance upon us; and that then those who had fired at first, should not pretend to load their fusils again, but stand ready, with every one a pistol, for we were all armed with a fusil and a pair of pistols each man; so we were, by this method, able to fire six vollies, half of us at a time; however, at present we had no necessity; for, upon firing the first volley, the enemy made a full stop, being terrified, as well with the noise as with the fire; four of them being shot in the head, dropped; several others were wounded, and went bleeding off, as we could see by the snow. I found they stopped, but did not immediately retreat; whereupon, remembering that I had been told, that the fiercest creatures were terrified at the voice of a man, I caused all our company to halloo as loud as we could, and I found the notion not altogether mistaken; for upon our shout, they began to retire, and turn about; then I ordered a second volley to be fired in their rear, which put them to the gallop, and away they went to the woods.